


Gift of Idunn One Shots and Extras

by shell



Series: Gift of Idunn [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Not Beta Read, Prompt Fill, Shell's summer of writing, one shots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-12 01:37:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7079275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shell/pseuds/shell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First chapter: Not the Same, But.<br/>Second chapter: An Unexpected Visitor.<br/>Third Chapter: Phil Coulson's Nickname is Not Cheese.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not the same, but.

**Author's Note:**

> Posting some quick, unbetaed prompt fills and ficlets from all my Clint/Phil universes this summer, so here's what I've got for Gift of Idunn. I may or may not be adding other pieces as new chapters.

Clint didn't like this new Coulson. The guy looked like his husband had, only thinner. He had the same voice, but he was so much quieter. He was pale, sad, and so lonely it made Clint's chest hurt to look at him. Clint shouldn't have looked at him; he didn't need to. He may have shared a lot with the man Clint had loved, but he wasn't him. He was a stranger, except in all the ways he wasn't.

He wasn't Clint's husband; he wasn't Clint's Phil, but Phil was there, still, in the bones of the man who shared his face. He was thinner than Clint's Phil, but he was strong--strong enough to survive injury and infection and radiation poison and being sent to another universe. A traitorous voice inside Clint said that he was maybe even stronger than Clint's Phil, because he'd _survived._

Clint saw him working with PT one day not too long after his surgery. The therapist told him to stop, but Phil--but this new Coulson didn't want to listen. He was sweating, paler than usual, in obvious pain, but he wouldn't stop using the resistance bands until he looked up and saw Clint standing there. He raised his eyebrows, and Clint shook his head, frowning, and that was what finally got him to stop. 

Clint tried not to come back, but he had to walk through that area to get to the heavy bags, or so he told himself. Another time when the new Coulson was pushing too hard Clint overheard the PT telling him that if he didn't listen, he'd call Barton, and that's what got him to stop what he was doing.

The new Coulson was quiet; he didn't say much at all unless you asked him a direct question. He still hero-worshipped Cap, but he hid it behind his mask of professionalism much better than Clint knew his husband had. And he didn't have the same snark that Clint's Phil had, or at least he didn't share it as much. The first time Clint heard him give Stark a hard time was more than six months after he'd arrived, and that was only after Stark had practically begged him to. 

The new Coulson was desperately, achingly lonely. They could all see it, Clint thought, but he, Fury, and Nat were the only ones who really understood how deep it went. They were the only ones who'd truly known the old Coulson; Clint was the only one who'd ever met Phil's family. Steve and Bucky at least got how it must have felt for the guy to lose everyone he'd ever known; Clint got how it felt to get a replacement rather than the original. 

It got confusing sometimes, dealing with the new Coulson, but Clint never truly forgot that he wasn't Clint's Phil. As the months went on, though, it got easier to see the new Coulson for who he was rather than who he wasn't. His nose had been broken, but it had healed in a slightly different shape. He had more grey in his hair. His eyes were just as kind, but there was a little more green in them. He wasn't as good a shot, but he was better with improvised weapons--one night when they were all together for dinner, he told a story about foiling a robbery with a bag of flour, and Clint smiled and laughed and it didn't hurt, not at all.

When the Ten Rings mission went south, Clint stormed down to Medical to yell at him, only realizing what he'd done after he'd already done it. He didn't forget that Phil wasn't the man he'd married, not for a second--he forgot that he didn't have a similar relationship with the new version. 

That night he sat in his room for hours, trying to make sense of it all, trying to figure out what, if anything, he should do about it. It wasn't right, what he was feeling. He loved (he had loved) his husband. This wasn't his husband, this man who'd apologized for his mere existence, multiple times, just because he knew Clint was hurting. 

This man, this Phillip Evan Coulson, was a good man, a badass, a surprisingly good friend to Bucky. He was selfless and kind, and he was so strong; he'd survived so much. Clint knew he'd loved his universe's Barton. He'd loved his Clint, but his Clint hadn't loved him back, and that Clint just did not understand. There was so much to love about Phillip Evan Coulson, and it wasn't fair that he hadn't been loved in return.

Clint closed his eyes, trying to put that dangerous thought out of his mind. It didn't work. 

 

The only time Clint had touched Phil (his name was Phil; he wasn't doing his husband any disservice by calling the man by his name) was the day he arrived, when he'd searched him, cuffed him, and had him collapse while leaning against Clint. He'd kept at least that much physical distance between them until Norway. He didn't hesitate to pull Phil into cover, and once he'd awakened in their cell he didn't hesitate to pull Phil closer, to cushion his head on the very same thigh he'd leaned on the day he'd arrived. 

It felt right to keep his hand on Phil's shoulder, to watch him breathe and wake up. He could feel Phil tremble when Clint felt for his implant, but it wasn't something to worry about. When Phil had a headache, Clint didn't hesitate to help, and he didn't worry about how he knew what to do. The thing that felt weird about it all was that how not weird it felt. It should have felt strange to touch Phil, to massage his neck, to sleep next to him, to wake up with Phil in his arms. It didn't. If anything, Phil was more uncomfortable than Clint was. 

Talking with Phil, finding out more about what made him tick, about who he was and where he'd come from--all of that felt right, too, until it didn't. Because while this Phil wasn't the man he'd married, he so easily could have been. Hearing what Phil said, hearing it and knowing it was the truth, was almost more than Clint could take, because this Phil, this lonely, kind, generous man who was with him now, knew and understood (and loved) Clint just as much as the man he'd loved and lost.

 

When they took Phil away and Clint was left alone, he started to shake, and not from the cold. It took him some time to figure out why, and the reason surprised him. It wasn't because he was angry or grieving, or worrying that he was betraying his husband's memory--it was because he was scared he was going to lose this Phil, this man for whom he had the kinds of feelings he'd sworn he'd never feel again. 

When they brought him back, Clint felt nothing but an overwhelming sense of relief. "I know you," he told Phil, and it felt like the most honest thing he'd said since Loki. When he added that they were going to have to talk about it, well. That was honest, too; Clint could face his fears, _would_ face his fears, because that's what his husband would have wanted him to do. 

That night, after he'd made embracing Phil a conscious choice, he dreamed about the other Phil Coulson, the one he'd known first, the one he'd loved first. That Phil had showed up in his dreams frequently in the months after his death, and at first it had hurt so much to wake up. 

Clint remembered vividly the first dream he'd had where he knew within the dream that the man he was talking to was dead--he hadn't said anything, but he'd known, and Phil had known, too, had known and told Clint to keep going and live his life. It was an echo of a conversation they'd had early on in their relationship, a conversation they'd had after Phil had taken Clint to meet his family for the first time, a Thanksgiving visit complicated by the fact that Clint had been on crutches and in a fair amount of pain after being systematically beaten by some bad guys until Phil had managed to get them both out.

That night in Norway, he and dream Phil were in their apartment, and Phil was getting ready to go off on a mission, leaving Clint alone. "You know you're part of the family now," dream Phil reminded him. "If something happens to me, you can go to them."

"Something _did_ happen to you," Clint told him. "You're dead, Phil. Loki killed you."

Dream Phil nodded. "I know, and I'm sorry. It's okay, though, Clint. It's okay to love both of us. It's okay to be happy. You know I'll always want you to be happy."

Then, in the way of dreams, they were in bed, kissing, and Clint was rubbing up against Phil, and dream Phil wasn't his husband anymore, the Phil in his arms was the one who'd lost his family and friends, the one who was quiet and lonely and so fucking strong, and Clint wanted him, and Clint loved him, and he didn't want to wake up, because he was with Phil. 

But he woke up anyway. It was awkward, and not just for the obvious reason. He had clearly been humping Phil in his sleep, and Phil's attempt to hide his body's response had been even less effective than the morning before--but Clint couldn't find the words to tell Phil that it was okay, that he didn't mind, that he wanted Phil as much as he'd ever wanted his dead husband.

He couldn't find the words; he was too afraid to find the words, and that pissed him off. The whole thing pissed him off; all of a sudden he was so fucking _angry,_ and he knew it was because he couldn't find the words. He knew the old Phil, dream Phil, would have helped him find the words, but that just made him more angry, and when the new Phil, when Phil, just _Phil,_ damnit, told him what had happened between him and Barton in Saigon ("Ho Chi Minh City," dream Phil said to him), he didn't know which end was up. When Phil told him he was an only child, that, in fact, he'd lost his family years earlier, Clint couldn't figure out what he wanted to do more--punch the wall or pull Phil into his arms and never let him go.

When the lights went out, he went with the second option, and he never, not in all the years that followed, regretted it. He'd thought he'd never love anyone the way he'd loved Phillip James Coulson, and he'd been right. He didn't love Phillip Evan Coulson the same way, but he loved him; he loved everything about him--the ways he was like the old Phil and the ways he was different. 

And that was okay. That was good. "I know he never would have wanted to see you in pain like this," Phil had said at his husband's grave, and it was the truth. "It's okay to love both of us," the Phil in his dream had told him, and that was the truth, too.

END


	2. An Unexpected Visit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barbara and Evan hadn't seen Clint for a few months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this fairly soon after I finished Gift of Idunn but never managed to go any further with it. Looked it, polished it up some, and figured out a good place to end it (rather than continue it) as a one-shot, so here it is!

Barbara understood why she hadn't heard much from Clint over the past few months. Losing Phil had been hard on all of them, but it had been more than a year, and they were past the worst of it, had gotten past the first summer, the first Thanksgiving, Phil's birthday, Phil and Clint's anniversary. It was natural for Clint to pull away a little; he might even be seeing someone new. If he was, Barbara hoped he'd tell her and Evan about it when they saw him at Thanksgiving. 

She sent him an email on Halloween, asking if it was okay if they came down to the city on Monday. There was a play she wanted to see on Broadway, but they didn't want to overstay their welcome, especially since she knew Mr. Stark would insist on putting them up at the Avengers' Tower again.

She got a phone call from Clint about an hour after she'd sent the email. "Clint, what a wonderful surprise," she said when she answered the phone. "How are you?"

"I'm fine, Barbara; I'm great," he said, but he sounded strange. He was definitely seeing someone, she decided. "Listen, there's something I need to talk to you and Evan about; I was wondering if I could come up there this weekend."

"You know you're always welcome here," she said. "Is anything wrong?"

"No, no, nothing's wrong," he said quickly. "Like I said, there's just something I need to talk to you about. I'll drive up on Saturday morning, if that's okay."

"Of course it's okay. We'll see you when you get here."

She told Evan about the phone call and her suppositions when he got home from golfing. "I wonder if it's that Natasha," he said. "Always thought there was something between them."

"It could be," Barbara said, wondering. "I guess we'll find out on Saturday."

Clint knocked on their door about eleven Saturday morning. Barbara didn't see his car in the driveway, which was odd. He looked anxious, but he also looked happier than he had since Phil's death. She gave him a hug and a kiss, and Evan shook his hand, and then she offered him some coffee and they settled down on the sofa.

Clint fiddled with his coffee cup for a minute. He wasn't wearing his wedding ring anymore, Barbara realized with a pang. It shouldn't bother her; she really did want him to move on, to be happy. But it was still a little hard to see.

"So, you wanted to tell us something?" she asked, making herself smile at him.

"Yeah," Clint said, putting his cup onto the coffee table. "I have some news, some pretty big news. I just don't exactly know how to tell you."

"If you're seeing someone else, we understand," Evan said. "We don't expect you to live the rest of your life as a monk."

Clint laughed, sounding uncomfortable. "It's a little bit more complicated than that," he said. "I mean, yes, I am seeing someone, but…."

"But what?" Evan asked, frowning. "Spit it out, son."

"Okay," Clint said, but then he stopped and picked up his coffee cup again. "Okay," he said again, sitting up and squaring his shoulders; it reminded Barbara of the first time Phil had brought him home, how nervous he'd been, and how she'd watched him face them down like they were the scariest thing he'd ever seen, but he was damned if he was going to let that stop him. "Have the two of you ever heard of the multi-universe theory of quantum physics?"

"The what?" Barbara said, completely confused. "Are you dating a physicist, Clint?"

Clint snorted and shook his head. "No, I'm not dating a physicist, although I wouldn't mind having Bruce or Tony here to explain this stuff. It's this theory, only it turns out it's not actually a theory at all, but it says that there's an infinite number of universes out there."

"What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?" Evan asked, frowning.

"It's part of what I need to tell you," Clint said. "Trust me, you need to understand this."

"Of course we trust you," Barbara said, giving Evan a look. "Go on, tell us about the universes." 

"This is the way I understand it," Clint said. "Some of the universes out there are almost exactly like ours, except maybe one tiny difference, like, I don't know, I drive a blue car instead of a maroon one or something stupid like that. Others have a lot of differences--maybe the Axis won the second world war instead of the Allies, or maybe humans never evolved at all and there are still dinosaurs, or there's no life on this planet at all."

"All right," Evan said doubtfully. "I think I understand the concept--it sounds like the science fiction novels Phil used to read when he was a kid--but I don't understand what it has to do with who you're dating."

"Yeah, I know," Clint said heavily. "Here's the part that I don't know how you're going to react to. It turns out that there's a universe out there where things went differently in some pretty key ways, but the same in some others. You know what I do, how I work with the Avengers."

Barbara nodded. Her heart was beating faster, and she wasn't sure why. 

"And you know Phil was involved with that," Clint went on. "That's how he died, trying to take Loki down during the Chitauri invasion last summer."

Barbara nodded again. She reached out and took Evan's hand.

"In this other universe, things happened differently," Clint said. He was looking at them, and his face was very serious. "The Avengers there couldn't stop the invasion. They all died. There was a group that stopped things eventually, but they did it by bombing Manhattan. But the Phil Coulson in that universe wasn't killed by Loki, although everyone he cared about was. He was left in charge of SHIELD, but everything was in really bad shape, and he wasn't doing very well himself."

"How do you know this?" Barbara asked, her heart in her throat. The thought of her son suffering like that was horrifying.

"I'm getting to that, I promise," Clint said. "Two months after the invasion, this other Phil Coulson was checking out some alien tech, trying to find something that would help. He picked up something, something that originated on Asgard--that's where Thor's from--and it went off. It transported him to another universe. To this universe."

"Oh my God," Evan breathed, squeezing Barbara's hand tightly. "He's alive? Phil's alive?"

Clint shook his head. "I'm sorry, but he's not…he's not your son, Evan," he said gently. "There's a lot of him in this Phil, though; it's…." He shook his head again. "His name is Phillip Evan Coulson. He's got a lot in common with the Phil we all knew, but a lot of his life was very different. He's not the man I married, and he's not your son. But he's…he's still Phil, just not our old Phil. I don't know how else to explain it."

"You love him," Barbara said, tears in her eyes.

"Yeah, I love him," Clint said quietly. "It took me a long time to get there, but I love him. He's a good man, Barbara--strong and brave and kind."

"Of course he is," Evan said.

"When he…you said he got here two months after. Why didn't he tell us?" Barbara said, her hand at her heart. "Clint, why didn't he contact us? Why didn't you tell us?"

Clint looked down at his hands for a moment. "Because he didn't think you'd want to see him," he said, looking up again. "His parents disowned him when he told them he was gay. He hadn't talked to them in over twenty years."

"Oh, no," Barbara said. _That poor boy,_ she thought.

"What about Jenny and Liz? Even if he didn't contact us, why didn't he call his sisters?" Evan asked.

"He didn't know anything about them," Clint said. "He was an only child."

"Jesus," Evan said, shaking his head. "So he didn't have any family except you? I mean, the other you?"

Clint shook his head again, his expression grim. "The other me was straight," he said; his voice was tight and angry. "Phil still fell for him, but the other Barton didn't react well when he told him."

"So he was alone," Barbara said as it sunk in. "Before he came here, he was all alone."

"Yeah," Clint said. "He was alone." He took a drink of his coffee. "And I was…. When he first got here, I was in pretty bad shape, and seeing him, it was really hard. So I basically pretended he didn't exist; I didn't want anything to do with him. Almost everyone else was really happy that he was here, that they had a version of Phil back, but I couldn't deal with it, and he respected that. He stayed away, he gave me all the space I needed."

"What changed?" Barbara asked, reaching out to touch Clint's hand.

"Time passed, and I couldn't ignore his existence forever," Clint said. "The team, they forced the issue, made it so that I had to put up with being in the same room with him. I actually had a conversation with him at Phil's grave last December; it was bizarre how natural it felt to talk to him. I'd see him at work. I started to realize that, different as he was, he was still someone I wanted to get to know, and he was someone I could grow to care for very easily." He looked down for a minute before he spoke again. "It scared the hell out of me; you don't want to know the number of times I left rooms he was in because I couldn't face how he made me feel."

Barbara nodded. She wasn't completely sure how she felt about it all, and she'd had more than a year to get used to her son being gone. There was one thing she was sure about, though. She needed to meet this man who both was and wasn't her son.

Clint took another drink of his coffee. "Then, a month ago, we got…. I can't tell you the details, but we were held for a couple days by some bad guys. They didn't hurt us," he said quickly as Barbara gasped. She knew he was lying, just as he and Phil had lied to them before. At least he was fine now.

"We were stuck in a cell for two and a half days," Clint said. "We talked about everything; we worked through it all. That's when he told me about his parents. By the end of it, I just let it all go. I let myself love him." He smiled warmly; it was an expression Barbara hadn't seen on his face since before Phil had died. 

"I'm glad you did," she told him. 

He inclined his head; she thought he wasn't sure if he should believe her, so she smiled at him. "I'm sorry I didn't talk to him about you when we first got back to New York," he said. "I should have, but we were, it was still so new between us; we were busy figuring out how to be together. I just didn't think about it until I got your email, Barbara."

"He's here, isn't he," Evan said, not making it a question.

Clint nodded. "He's waiting in the car down the street."

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Evan said. "Go get him."

"Are you sure?" Clint asked, looking at both of them.

"Of course we're sure," Barbara said firmly. 

Clint smiled again. "Good. I told him how it would go with you two. I'll be back in a few."

The two of them stood by the window and watched as Clint jogged down the street to a waiting car. He spoke to whoever was inside through an open window, but they couldn't see the man's face until he got out of the car. 

Then he got out of the car. It was Phil; it was their son, only a bit thinner, a little older, more careworn. He was wearing one of his dark suits, and he was looking at Clint, his mouth set in a thin line. Clint leaned in and kissed him softly, said something to him, took his hand, and pulled him towards the house.

END


	3. Phil Coulson's Nickname is Not Cheese

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apparently I am writing more points of view in the Gift of Idunn universe. This time it's Nick. I've never written anything from his POV before, but it wanted to be written, so here it is.

It took almost a year after Cheese's death before Nick could look at the alternate universe version of his dead best friend without suppressing a flinch. He knew he wasn't the only one who had a hard time dealing with the sudden appearance of Coulson 2.0, but most of them got over it a lot faster than he had. Even Maria, who'd flat out refused to talk to him at the beginning, was handling it just fine a couple of months in.

Natasha was such a master of compartmentalization that Nick wasn't sure, but she--and Pepper Potts, of all people--seemed to roll with it better than most. Rogers had barely known Cheese, and Banner had never met him, so they had no issues with his doppelganger. If anything, Rogers was more comfortable with the new Coulson than he had been with the old one, probably because Cheese hadn't been able to hide his hero-worship quite as well (or, more likely, hadn't bothered to). 

Stark sublimated his feelings, as always, into his work, spending hours with Banner trying to figure out how it had all happened. He never got that stupid silver ball to do anything but sit there, but he never gave up trying. Nick got the impression the alternate Phil hadn't been as close to Stark as Cheese had been, but Cheese had hid that much better, so he didn't think Stark noticed.

Thor was genuinely delighted, the only one who'd known the old Coulson who seemed to have no problems adjusting. He'd offered to bring his cousin to Midgard to look at the sphere, but Nick, the new Coulson, and Hill had agreed that wasn't a good idea.

It was the anniversary of the battle when Coulson became someone Nick could call a friend, which wasn't a word he used for many people. Maria had dragged him, May, Sitwell, and Coulson into Nick's office and demanded he produce "the good stuff" they all knew he kept hidden in his desk drawer. He grumbled but complied, and after a few drinks he slipped up and called Coulson "Cheese."

"What the hell, Nick?" Coulson asked him. "What kind of a nickname is that?"

"You mean the other Nick didn't have a nickname for you?" Maria demanded, waving her scotch around so much it almost spilled over. 

"Never mind, forget it," Coulson said. 

"Spit it out, boss," Natasha said. She'd shown up about an hour in, bearing vodka. 

"Spit what out?" Coulson asked, but they all looked at him with disbelief.

"A brand new level one could tell you're trying to hide something, Coulson," Nick said. "So the other me didn't call you 'Cheese'--he sure as shit called you something. What was it?"

"You know they'll get it out of you, Phil," Sitwell said. "Might as well give up now."

Coulson sighed. "I can't believe I'm telling you this, but yes, I was given a nickname when I was in basic. Marcus found out about it and never let me live it down."

"Marcus?" May said, but when Nick glared at her she dropped it. Apparently he wasn't the only one drunk enough to slip up on names.

"Go on, Phil," Maria said, looking gleeful. "Spill it."

Coulson squared his shoulders and said, "Peckerhead. He called me Peckerhead, okay?"

"What on earth made him call you that?" May asked as the rest of them burst into laughter. 

"Like I said, it was my drill sergeant who came up with it," Coulson said. "He saw my initials on my duffle."

"How do you get 'Peckerhead' from 'PJC'?" Sitwell asked.

"You don't," Nick said. "You could get it from 'PEC,' though."

Coulson nodded. "My middle name isn't James, like your guy's. It's Evan, after my dad."

"I did not know that," Sitwell said, looking at Maria. "Did you know that, Hill?"

"I did," she replied. "Because I am just that good."

"Tell us, Maria," Coulson said, "what happened at your senior prom."

"Fuck you, Peckerhead!" she shouted, and this time her drink spilled all over Nick's very nice office carpet.

"That's coming out of your pay, Hill," Nick said. They all knew about Maria's disastrous high school dating history, so there was no need to salt that wound.

"Sure, _Marcus,_ whatever you say."

Nick didn't remember a whole lot about the rest of that night, but he gleefully used Coulson's nickname whenever he got the chance.

 

And then there was Barton.

For the first two months after his miraculous arrival, Barton avoided any interaction with the man who wasn't his husband. He still managed to keep track of every facet of the man's life, however. Barton would leave the room just before Coulson arrived, only to reappear the moment he departed. He'd stalk around with a murderous glare on his face, daring anyone to try to talk to him; Natasha was the only one whose company he could tolerate for longer than a few minutes. 

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when Pepper forced Barton to hash it out with the new Coulson, but while Barton's glare went from "I will murder you" to "I will maim you" (Nick had known Barton long enough to be able to make that kind of distinction), his overall tension level didn't improve much. He reminded Nick of the kid he'd been at the beginning, angry at everything because it was the only way he knew how to protect himself. It made Nick's heart break when he thought about it, so he tried not to think about it. Wasn't like he could do anything to fix it.

Natasha kept pushing Barton, which was hardly surprising, and slowly the glare mellowed until it almost reached the normal scowl, the expression Barton always insisted was "just my resting face." Barton stopped avoiding Coulson, but he didn't seek him out, either.

There was some sort of altercation in Medical after Coulson requalified as a field agent, but Nick didn't pay it any mind, choosing instead to send Coulson along on an Avengers op for the first time. 

The fallout from that mission was…unexpected, to say the least--although according to Natasha, it shouldn't have been. She claimed to have seen it all coming, but Nick didn't believe her. He also didn't believe it was a good thing, this supposed love between Barton and the man who was not Barton's dead husband.

He was never happier to be proven wrong.

END

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me either at [my fannish tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/shellumbo) or [my pro writing tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/sbyzmcpherson). Or you can follow either on Twitter: @shellumbo or @sbyzmcpherson. Or both!


End file.
